1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to horizontally supported planar surfaces with air moving means. More specifically, the invention relates to a nail device or workstation for performing manicure.
2. Description of Related Art Including Information Disclosed Under 37 CFR 1.97 and 1.98
Professional manicure salons increasingly protect both employees and customers from exposure to manicure by-products. Successful control of by-products requires that both solids and vapors be removed from the work area. The solids range from nail clippings to nail filings and may include abrasive particles from smoothing tools. The vapors are largely evaporated solvents and thinners in products used for manicure and in polish. These products might be nail polish remover, nail polish, adhesives, and other types of cleaners, finishes, lotions, and the like.
These by-products commonly escape when manicures are performed. In a home setting, they produce little difficulty because the quantity of manicures performed at one time is small. However, in a professional salon there may be a considerable number of manicures performed at the same time, both preceded and followed by additional manicures. Thus, by-products in a salon are generated almost continuously throughout the day and are a substantial problem to adequately remove from the nail salon, due to the high volume of solvents that enter the air from multiple workstations.
Exhaust systems have been used to vent solvents, where allowed by air quality regulations. However, an exhaust system merely transfers the solvents to the outside environment, where the solvent accumulates with other undesirable vapors to lower the general quality of ambient air. Exhaust systems present the further problem of requiring make-up air flow into the salon, which brings in untreated outside air. The heating or cooling system in the salon is required to treat this constant flow of new air, which can add considerable cost to operating the business.
Closed loop treatment systems attempt to avoid loss of treated air. Some of these are small or portable blower systems that purport to clean the air, but experience shows that these lack functional capacity, apparently due to their small size and inability to handle the volume of solvents that single workstation can generate over a single day. These small systems are not integrated with the manicure workstation and appear to interfere with or restrict the manicurist's work. Examples are a table-top unit disclosed in U.S. Design Pat. D325,431 to Novobilski; and a tripod mounted vacuum disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,116,249 to Tuffery. U.S. Pat. No. 6,698,360 to Park is similar in showing a taxi unit that is placed on a workstation and neighboring floor. The taxi unit has air purifier placed in open view next to a workstation, with a vacuum hose draped over the workstation and leading to a suction head standing upon the workstation.
Another style of blowers or filters is the hood-mounted system, disclosed in basic form in U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,906 to Mai and U.S. Pat. No. 5,112,373 to Pham. The presence of a hood is a significant inhibitor to the close attention that accompanies good quality manicure work, and the presence of a laboratory-style hood can discourage and drive away customers. At the same time, a hood can be carried to further negative extremes. This is seen in U.S. Pat. No. 6,708,697 to Ziff, which converts the hood into a full sealing sleeve and cuff box, which is alarmingly reminiscent of highly dangerous situations involving disease, poison, or radioactivity. To a similar degree, U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,903 to Blackshear discloses a hood box that modifies the arm sleeves to be entry seals or slots on each side of the hood. Understandably, almost no manicurist would be willing to use such extreme equipment.
A workstation as shown in U.S. Patent Publication 2008/0216647 to Phan conceals much of the technical equipment within the workstation. However, Phan merely shelters the equipment from view without achieving the advantages of integrating the equipment into existing structures of the workstation. For example, one pedestal of Phan's workstation merely hides inside it a pre-existing vacuum cleaner. Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 4,280,519 to Chapman shows an exhaust system that does not utilize the structures of the manicure table to optimize performance of the various stages of the cleaning process.
Portable systems and hoods all are undesirable for negatively impacting on customers and on the manicurist trade. The clearest problem is the visual impact or fear factor caused by technical equipment on display. Manicurists strive to make their shops warm and inviting, rather than cold and technical. It would be desirable for a manicure workstation to minimize or eliminate signs of technical equipment in use. While the use of air cleaning equipment is environmentally helpful, the equipment should take advantage of existing support structure in the manicure salon to operate optimally with minimum imposition on the manicurist and customer.
It would be desirable to have a robust cleaning system in a manicure table, employing table geometry to create high efficiency in debris and odor removal.
To achieve the foregoing and other objects and in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, as embodied and broadly described herein, the method and apparatus of this invention may comprise the following.